Fiber cement products are well known and widely used as building materials. In order to protect these materials from potential transport and installation damages as well as defects due to weathering and humidity, one or more coating layers are often applied on the outer surface during production. In addition, colored coatings were developed to provide fiber cement products with an esthetically desired look at the outer surface.
However, it would further be desirable to produce fiber cement products provided with a decorative design pattern, an advertising pattern and/or an identification print on the outer surface.
Ink-jet printing with traditional solvent-based or water-based pigmented inks is a known method for directly patterning and fabricating patterns without the need for masks. While this process has been widely used for producing decorative and advertising patterns directly onto on objects such as ceramics and glass, this was up to now not possible with fiber cement products because of the inherent heterogenic composition and surface roughness of fiber cement. Indeed, ink-jet printing performed directly onto the surface of a fiber cement object with traditional solvent-based or water-based pigmented inks resulted up to now in ink bleeding and thereby substantially reduced the print quality by causing jagged edges and even undesirable ink stains.